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Archive for the tag “suicide”

The Commission on Assisted Dying says “the current law is “inadequate and incoherent” and should not continue.” How right they are, the right to a peaceful death at a time and place of our own choosing should be enshrined in the UN Charter of Human Rights. My life is by definition mine and your life by definition is yours, it does not belong to anyone else least of all to the State.

This particular report only goes as far as saying that someone diagnosed with a life expectancy of under 12 months should be able to call upon medical assistance to die peacefully and suggest, quite rightly, many safeguards. This is obviously a tentative step in the direction of legalising what already happens to a fortunate few who have the resources to go to Dignitas in Switzerland which presupposes that you have the financial and physical ability to get there. It also means that perhaps some people are actually going abroad to die earlier than they would wish simply because if they delay they may not be able to travel.

I can understand some doctors not willing to participate either from an ethical value or religious belief and that’s fine they can exclude themselves from helping but no politician or law should prevent me or anyone else ending MY life if I choose to do so in order to save myself a prolonged suffering that will eventually end in death anyway.

Assisted suicide is much in the news lately including today’s showing on Sky and recent death of the young rugby player in Switzerland.

There is opposition to legalise assisted suicide in this country, in particular from religious groups who say only God can decide when someone should die and that life is a gift. It seems to me that a gift with strings attached is no gift at all. I have no problem respecting these people’s point of view and if they want to suffer unnecessarily that’s their right but what of those who have no religious belief? A right to choose is all that is required.

At the moment a terminally ill person can go to Switzerland for example, to leave this life peacefully with loved ones around. The problem is they have to leave their home and travel to a foreign land and do so perhaps before they wish in order to be able to travel. Why can’t they have the right to choose to die in their own home at the last moment that they wish?

It seems so simple to me and would also appear that the majority of our population agree, so come on Parliament get on with legislation, safeguards can easily be inserted into a Bill.

Ian Huntley the cold blooded killer of two little girls back in 2002 and sentenced to a minimum of 40 years in prison is apparently being given special treatment.

Huntley has attempted suicide in the past and is at risk of trying again. He was given a television complete with a set-top box early on in his sentence, even though this is an earned privilege for all other prisoners, to help him cope with prison life. Now, prison officers have been instructed to sit and play Scrabble and other games with him “to keep his spirits up”.

No one was more pleased than me when the barbaric practice of capital punishment was ended but when this distressed human being has made it clear, over a period of six years, that he wants to end his life would it not be a kindness to let him? There is virtually no possibility of his release and therefore no chance of rehabilitation, his continuing incarceration and suicide prevention must border on mental torture. I am not suggesting for a moment that he should be given any assistance to end his life but that the special measures on prevention be removed.